Savior, save me from the things I most want!

Every once in a while I get tweets from colleagues that read more or less like this “yesterday, x # of people got saved! Praise Jesus!”. While I do rejoice that people are committing their lives to Jesus (and BTW – I do believe in public conversions and altar calls) there’s always been a counter question in my head. What do these people want out of salvation? Or better, what do people in general, want out of salvation?

To me, it’s hard to think that what they really want is a more comfortable place after death. In fact, most people don’t like to think about their death (if they do they are either very sick, very old or very weird), much less where they go after that.  I’m convinced that people want salvation here and now. Most people when they think of salvation think about making their way to a stable ground. They are after someone that will lead them to emotional, financial, professional, romantic and, relational stability. They want a Jesus that will take them “there” and that, even if he does not give them the job or the lover that they want, at the very least he will make them happy.

In my 14 years (10 of them as an ordained presbyterian minister) of ministry, I’ve seen many people come forward and have baptized many others that did not remain in the faith too long after their “conversions” or “baptisms”. In the cases that I can remember they left Jesus either because they got too much or received too little of the things they’ve always wanted. With too much Jesus did too little, and with the too little Jesus did nothing at all. Fair disappointment. After all, heaven for most people is a state, a stage, a person or, an object and Jesus is a savior that serves as a facilitator to get these things.

In juxtaposition, the Gospel presents salvation as finding God himself — nothing else. As a matter of fact finding Jesus means losing everything else. He said so. Heaven is finding a stable place with and in God while experiencing vertigo in all other places, stages and life relationships.

I conclude therefore that I believe and I want salvation now but, only the one that will save me from the things I most want.

Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:46 PM in Pastor Felipe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.